Chinese authorities have drawn global attentions for building re-education camps in Xinjiang. Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights, a Kazakh civil organization, has volunteered to disclose the inside stories about the Xinjiang Re-education camps and to assist the Kazakh, Uighur, and Kirgiz people in Xinjiang in finding missing or imprisoned relatives and friends. Recently, a pro-Beijing local Chinese group in Kazakhstan filed a lawsuit against Atajurt, charging the organization and its founder Serikzhan Bilash with “destroying the friendship between China and Kazakhstan.” It asked the court to declare Atajurt an illegal organization.
According to Radio Free Asia, Atajurt obtained a plethora of information regarding the Chinese government’s ethnic policies and practices in Xinjiang, including burning The Koran, demolishing mosques, prohibiting ethnic minorities from holding traditional weddings or funerals, and even sentencing Imams or causing Imams to die in prison. This information has drawn attention from the United States, the United Nations, and the European Union.
It has been said that the 37-member “patriotic overseas Chinese” group has close ties with the Chinese Embassy. According to Serikzhan, these people have participated in a number of social events that the Chinese Embassy organized in Kazakhstan, such as the annual “National Day” dinner, and they also attended the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (held in Beijing). He said that, “Their purpose is to stop us from organizing activities and stop us from continuing to collect information and evidence about the Xinjiang ‘re-education’ concentration camps.”
Source: Radio Free Asia, February 13, 2019
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/shaoshuminzu/ql1-02132019094914.html